Edward Hart

Associate Professor, Music Theory/Composition

Edward Hart’s music has been performed throughout the United States and Latin America including performances in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Boston, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Hart’s music was also featured at the opening of the 32nd Annual International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico with President Vicente Fox in attendance. Newspapers such as a.m., Leon, Mexico have described his music as “…spiritual and emotional,” El Pais, Montevideo, Uruguay as “…clearly visual,” and the Charleston Post and Courier as having “… great sweep and strong appeal.” His works include concertos for piano and guitar, various orchestral works, chamber music, solo piano compositions, and art songs.

Ensembles that have performed his music include Orquesta de Baja California (Mexico), Philharmonica de Montevideo (Uruguay), the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Carolina Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and the Upton Trio. He has received many commissions including song cycles for D’Anna Fortunato of the New England Conservatory of Music and Darryl Taylor, founder of the African-American Art Song Alliance, as well as a concerto for Uruguayan pianist Enrique Graf. Most recently, Hart has been invited to participate in the 2006 International Contemporary Music Festival in Kiev, Ukraine at which his Tidal Concerto will receive its European premiere.

From 1994 to 2004, Hart was a cofounder and musical director of The Lowcountry Heritage Society, an arts organization dedicated to the production of new works of art, music, and literature about or inspired by the South Carolina Lowcountry. During that time, the Society commissioned over fifty new musical works by thirteen composers. Additionally, the Society produced two modern dance works, a ballet, two literary anthologies, an original play, and fourteen visual art exhibits.

Hart is a native of Charleston South Carolina, USA and holds a Doctorate from the University of South Carolina where his primary composition teacher was Gordon “Dick” Goodwin. He is on the music faculty of the College of Charleston.